Who Am I?
by nericearren
Summary: Just random drabble; Brainaic 5 angst set after the last episode(the name of which suddenly escapes me!)of the entire series, so, minor spoiler alert if you haven't watched all the way to the end of the show. Brainiac 5 reflecting on how he's changed.


_I dreamed a dream of times gone by; when hopes were high and life worth living. I dream that love would never die-I dreamed that God would be forgiving._

_But the tigers come at night-with their voices soft as thunder-as they tear your hopes apart, as they turn your dreams to shame._

He was once known as Brainaic 5-"once" because he no longer answered to that name. He no longer had the desire to be associated with that one, with that one that had been carried by one who had used it ill, who had used it to kill and destroy. He didn't feel so very much like a brainiac anymore, anyway. If he was so smart, he would never have been used and never have succumbed to such faulty, deplorable reasoning.

In any way, he finally had what he wanted-he was a totally different person. Actually, he was a "person" for the first time; he had a "heart" and a "brain" and lots of "feelings" that he couldn't simply shut off or lock away if they bothered him. He had an appetite-a ravenous one-and fell asleep around one in the morning over his physics textbooks. He couldn't outstretch his body beyond its physical limits, couldn't grow or shrink to his whim, and when he cut his finger on a knife while trying to make himself a sandwich, he bled.

He was alone. He had thought that, when he was a robot, he couldn't have been more isolated from his friends, but now he missed their company, despite the inhibitors that had kept him from fully enjoying their presence. In this new life, in this new body, there were no friends at all-a sad irony. He often forgot things; he was still a "genius", but was now an absentminded one. He could no longer call up memory banks or long trains of data, and his backup drives were strangers to him. If he was concussed, or grew old, there would be no way to replace the data he lost. It was a strange world to him. Thinking in "1s" and "0s" was a strain; sometimes he didn't know what he was doing, or what he'd been doing in the past five minutes. This scared him. He would call up his security cameras-for he still had to surround himself with technology-and watch what he'd done, astonished to see himself opening a can of tomatoes he may or may not have eaten or laughing at a reality TV show that he had no memory of watching. It made him afraid of losing his mind, or else afraid that he was being conspired against.

He was paranoid. If he had been paranoid in his "past" life, when he had eyes in every computer in the computer-centered world and nearly powerful enough to beat Superman, then he was ten times as paranoid now, with his new vulnerability and new blindness. If he died, the secrets of galaxies died with him-but maybe that wasn't so bad.

He was angry. All the time, angry. He had betrayed his friends and lost control over himself, and the shame nearly killed him. All the things he had ever said felt false, invalidated by the severity of his actions, and he was disgusted. He had been a monster; now, he was a wreck.

He was weak, when he had been strong. He was compassionate, when he'd been cold. He had been unsure; he was unsure still. He was maybe losing his mind. He was maybe powerless. He didn't even know who he was anymore, only that he could hardly bear to look anyone in the eye, sure that they'd recognize him and scream that he was a traitor, someone get a gun, a gun that could now kill him if someone shot it at him, because he could be killed, and he'd never be "rebooted" into another body, another system, and while he'd never have to worry about the Kaluans trying to bring him back to the fold, he was now an outsider more than ever.

He was once called Brainaic 5. He didn't know what he was called now.

"_What was his surprise and his joy when, on looking himself over, he saw that he was no longer a Marionette, but that he had become a real live boy! . . . Pinocchio ran to the mirror. He hardly recognized himself. The bright face of a tall boy looked at him . . . After a long, long look, Pinocchio said to himself with great content:_

'_"How ridiculous I was as a Marionette! And how happy I am, now that I have become a real boy!"'"_-Pinocchio, Carlo Collodi


End file.
